Hot summer days of practice and two hotly contested scrimmages have led up to this: The opening game of the 2023 high school football season is Friday night, and the Fort Stockton Panthers will hit the road to El Paso to face Stephen F. Austin High School in a battle of the Panthers. Fort Stockton fans who venture to the west side of El Paso will see a mixture of young kids and some familiar faces eager to improve upon last year’s 10-2 campaign that ended in the second round of the playoffs with a loss to Glen Rose in San Angelo. Glen Rose eventually lost to eventual state champion Carthage.

Head coach Jeremy Hickman liked what he saw at last week’s scrimmage in Del Rio, where the Panthers took on Del Rio and Eagle Pass.

“We played really well,” said Hickman, who is entering his second season as head coach at his alma mater. “I was happy with our improvement from the week before (a scrimmage against Lake View that was played in Crane). We’re a young team so each day of practice each week is a chance for us to progress and get better and so I was happy with the improvement from the first scrimmage into the second scrimmage.”

Hickman said he was also happy with the offensive line play during the Del Rio scrimmage, especially facing a 5A and a 6A team because of the numbers. They can substitute more freely than Fort Stockton. “It was a test for us because of numbers and athletes available and we went toe-totoe with them and stood our own,” Hickman said.

That trial by fire for the offensive and defensive lines will be key in Friday’s opener as Austin High is big.

“I fully expect it to be highly competitive,” Hickman said. “Watching film on them, El Paso Austin is a very big team, and what I mean by that is they’re very large kids up front on both sides of the ball. Their running backs are big, they’ve got some tall receivers.”

Fort Stockton won last year’s game at home over Austin 18-16 off an Ayden Villareal field goal in the final minute.

Seventh-year Austin head coach Eric Pichardo’s team runs an old school Wing-T offense, a run-heavy scheme that utilizes that size on the line to wear down the clock.

“It’s going to be a test for us, there’s no doubt about it,” Hickman emphasized. “The defensive front that they show us is a five-man front so they put a body on a body on a body, you don’t see that every often this day and age. They’re pretty much five-onfive the entire time and so that does put pressure on our offensive linemen to perform. We’ve got to be able to understand some angles and make some adjustments up front during the play, of our presnap of the play being able to communicate and get some of the blocking things down. Our offensive line will be a very big key to this game.”

Fort Stockton fans will see Marco Garcia at quarterback once again leading the offense which coach Hickman says is the team’s strength with five returning starters. Tailback Corbin Luna will join Garcia in the backfield along with Isaiah Velasquez. Three starters return on the offensive line.

“We’re still pretty young up front but we’re anchored by 4-year senior Julian Leyva,” Hickman said. “He’s the only senior on the offensive line, everyone else is juniors and sophomores. But they do a great job, three of those juniors started last year. They’ve got good size and they’re working well as a team, and I would say that our offensive line and our running backs are the strong points of our team this year.”

The Panthers threw the ball some last year, but lost all four of their receivers, and Hickman said that it will take some time to develop the newcomers this year.

“As the year goes on, I fully intend for us to be a balanced offense as the season goes on,” Hickman added.

Sophomore Cash Norman, Junior Evan Cordero, junior Gama Corral, junior Alonzo Garcia and junior Fabian Silva will be the receiving corps this year. All of them were on the undefeated JV squad a year ago.

The Panthers return just three returning defensive starters – corner Randy Sandoval, safety Isaiah Velasquez and nose guard Xzavier Dominguez – all were all-district last year.

Most of the 33 seniors Hickman lost were on defense, so the Panthers are in the process of revamping the defense. “All of our kids are young, they have not played much varsity football so we’re in the process of growing those kids and building confidence in them to help them be their best,” Hickman said.

Also on the defensive front will be Evian Acosta, Brayden Valenzuela and Ethan Jimenez who are expected to contribute from the start. The new linebacker corps will be E.J. Ortiz, Landon Havins and Allan Leyva. Joining Isaiah Velasquez in the secondary will be Kael Rojero, Gabriel Caballero and Diego Ramos.

Kickoff Friday in El Paso will be at 7 p.m. CDT. The Panthers’ home opener is Sept. 1 against 3A Alpine, who the Panthers defeated 27-0 a year ago in Brewster County and who welcome a new head coach.